10 Quotes from the President of Chile at the APEC CEO Dialogues

During the 2020 APEC CEO Dialogues Malaysia 2020, which were streamed live on 19-20 November, President Sebastian Pinera of Chile had a conversation with Tian Wei of CGTN on “The Future of Global Leadership.”

Below are 10 excerpts from this conversation wherein President Pinera talks about “The Challenge of Inclusive Growth.”

1. “I remember when in 1994, when the APEC was held in Indonesia, we set the core values of APEC. And among those core values were, first of all, equal partnership, shared responsibility, mutual respect, common interest, and common benefit. And to achieve those goals, growth will have to be much more inclusive, and much more sustainable than what we have done up to now.”
2. “Of course, we are facing huge challenges, like the pandemia of the Coronavirus, the international economic recession. But even in the middle of these hard times, we should never forget that growth has to be inclusive, and sustainable.”
3. We have to take care of nature and the environment. Chile has a very ambitious plan. for it. Chile has committed itself to become a carbon neutral country, zero net emissions before 2030.
4. “First of all, we are decarbonizing our energy matrix, substituting coal and oil and gas for solar energy, wind energy. And we are doing that at a very fast pace. Actually, more than 95 percent of the investment in energy right now in Chile is with renewable clean energy. The second thing is that we are doing is transform our transportation system from a system based on fossil fuels to a system-based on electricity.”
5. “We have to take special care and have a special commitment give to women the same of rights and opportunities as men. And that's something that we can we can do much better than what we have done up to now—equal salary for equal jobs, in access to work, to the job market, access to leadership positions … those are things that we have to move faster.”
6. “We have problems. Global warming, the Coronavirus pandemia, but we have a huge ally, which is a tremendous technological and digital revolution that we experiencing. So, we have the problems here, we have the tools here. We have to use the tools to solve the problems.”
7. “While it's true that digitalization is a magnificent opportunity, tool, instrument, but it has also some dangers because it could increase inequality instead of go to decrease inequality. That's why it's so important that digitalization has to achieve and reach each and every corner of our country.”
8. “I hope someday to sell one product from one neighborhood to another neighbor in China will be as easy as to sell that same product from a Chilean neighborhood to a Chinese neighborhood. Digitalization, and a uniformity of process and systems and rules will facilitate that.”
9. “In the last 30 years, Chile has made great progress in terms of recovery and the strength of our democracy, in terms of economic development, in terms of reducing poverty, in terms of increasing opportunity, increasing our life expectancy. But it doesn't mean that we don't have problems. We have some problems. Particularly, we still have excess inequality. And we need to have a more inclusive society.”
10. “I think the Coronavirus pandemia has taught us the importance of international collaboration and the importance of acting in an urgent way because we don't have time to waste or to spend with respect to the global warming challenge or with respect to Coronavirus.”